EVE General Discussion

No but the difference is CCP employees in this case are stating that the player group they are handing unique, incredibly expensive items too are completely trustworthy.

I very much doubt an exhaustive audit has been performed on every transaction and account, including auditing of SOMERs own services and code, dating back to their creation. Such an audit would be necessary to justify such exorbitant claims, after all

But that's ok, CCP Navigator is repeatedly going to state that they are trustworthy and have so far honoured everything perfectly.

Disgusting.

The Gold Magnate is a very special ship and its legacy should get lost. Giving out this ship again would be bad as the history of the old would blurred or even lost.

But couldn't we go with a "new" memorial version of this Ship? A Gold Maganate II which has a direct link to the story and legacy of the original one? That it was handed out for achievement XXX and was owned and lost by Player Tyrrax Thorrk.
Wouldn't that help to keep the stories of old alive and still hold the uniqueness of each ship?



If you want to do this kind of give aways, wouldn't it be an option to deal with it in a blind auction run by CCP?
The ISK collected that way could be used for sponsoring the RL Event of Eve Vegas, this one or the next. And it wouldn't show favor for one profit driven organization or the other.

I'm not totally against promotion of that kind but keep the values much lower. Ships that will be worth trillions of isk is a way too big "promotion present".

Favouring one group over all its competitors is hurting the very core of the sandbox. And I happen to like that sandbox, so it's my business.

I would consider it slightly better cause it's less direct and it might not lead to ingame advantage (depending on how Somer would use the money), though as you say since there is the PLEX mechanism it wouldn't be much better. The maximum amount of CCP sponsoring towards a competitive ingame group I'd feel comfortable about would be free accounts and mentioning in a Spotlight dev blog as I already mentioned.

Do you really have to troll in a thread like this? I happen to be a 3rd party dev and I wouldn't want to get exclusive ingame stuff from CCP for it.

Why? Is Eve Vegas an event with ingame consequences in competition with other similar events? Do the organizers gain any ingame advantage over their competitors by having devs at their meeting?

this is the start of a very long slippery slope imo.

-3 accounts.

First of I want to say something good: I really like the prices, the Fanfest :O I'd love to win that, as I would love to win one of the collectors edition packs.

Now for my other feelings. Why can't you guys organize this on yourselves, give every eve player the opportunity to enter on a fair battlefield. It's nice that you care a lot about third party organisations, but giving a single one (that is set on making profit) special items... It's a no go. I hope you will find an other way to distribute these items. Or retract them totally from the game. It just doesn't seem fair.
Come on CCP, you do care about your players right?

Having a player run event in the United States in blatant favoritism towards Americans. Being a European I demand this take place on a neutral ground where everyone has the same travel costs. CCP should not be supporting this event since not everyone can participate. Furthermore, CCP should not be giving away free ship models to the first 500 people, since I can not be there due to my work-schedule. I want free stuff as well. Who can guarantee that the first 500 will not be goons and they will keep the ship models for themselves? We are speaking of things with a real-life value here, and not simply fake internet currency.




It would be awesome if everyone would at least attempt to think about what you are saying objectively and not just rage for the sake of raging. If I didn't know any better, I would say 95% of the comments here are trolls, but I fear they are meant seriously.
Barrens chat in Eve - who would have thought...

Where exactly is the ingame advantage that will distort ingame competition for being at Eve Vegas or getting a RL spaceship model?

Yeah, exactly. I don't give a flying f*** how IRL rich you are. I care about my fake internet sandbox, that's kind of why I'm posting here, as a player of the fake internet sandbox, ya know?

You're like that kettle in a glasshouse calling the stones black while throwing pots.

Best case scenario - Somer makes a lot of ISK out of the extra lotteries, then steals the unique ships, some interesting EVE history is made and the game gets some publicity.

Most likely scenario - the biggest act of CCP/individual player collusion since the fraudulent T2 BPO handouts occurs.

1. Eve employees aren't allowed to bid and would thus be excluded from winning prizes. I believe Chribba's Dice is used to pick winners and that CCP holds the prizes until the drawings and transfers them through SOMER to the winners (ticket numbers being available before the drawing for the public to view).

2. If so, worst case scenario is that a Blink employee might risk a lucrative position working for SOMER for the same chances to win the lottery as any other player. The third party drawing service would separate Blink from the chance to ‘steal’ the items. Some people are talking about Blink employee shills, without understanding that many casinos use shills (or prop players) as a customer service - people filling poker tables to keep games going being one example. In the case of Blink, it would help the games move faster and would not detract from the odds of any individual ticket winning. This is a good thing, though again I’m not sure it’s even happening. I do know that if one wants, free tokens can be used to get tickets. Using free tickets isn't gambling with risk, there is no -EV. Yeah, you'll have to support a site that's sponsoring a tourney for Eve by refreshing their page and signing up.

3. Assuming I'm correct, *edit* SOMER employees cannot win the prizes and there is little chance of SOMER Blink employees ‘running off’ with them. People who have cheated using Blink or have broken their TOS in the past will also be excluded. Spouses, brothers, visiting relatives, etc. who want to Blink do seem to be out of luck (system isn’t perfect). Outside those groups, the prizes will go to Eve players with at least one ticket in the lottery. Prizes stay within the community and everyone knows the rules, some may choose to buy better odds if they want them and yes those funds support SOMER. Considering every 10m=15bids at the most assuming no wins (10 tokens + 5 separate 2m bids), it's relatively cheap to buy additional votes (even blinking with that same-IP buddy and agreeing to split prize value). I won't go into the possibility of achievement hunting to recoup that ISK, or the fact that ISK may actually be won while simultaneously getting more bids. More than one achievement instantly qualifies for guaranteed positive credit and can be earned within a day.

4. CCP seems only guilty of increasing traffic through an in-game corporation's site. They aren't giving prizes directly to SOMER Blink employees for running a favored casino, they're using SOMER Blink's site to channel promotional items to players for the Eve-wide event SOMER Blink is sponsoring. I think there's a clear difference there. SOMER Blink isn’t gaining the value of the items, they’re gaining the value of the increased Blinks people are enticed to make specifically to win those items (I agree that this is likely a large amount, but have no idea what it will be). Players will be participating more frequently in the business model SOMER established trying to win the items, which will indeed increase SOMER’s earned in-game ISK. Their own promotions do the same thing. This same business was prepared to lose in-game ISK sponsoring the tournament in the first place; the income may help to offset or even eclipse that amount but again I have no idea. These promotional items may entice more in-game corporations to sponsor events in the future, giving back to the community some of the ISK they’ve made, in the hopes of similar promotional support. I agree that a clear, fair selection process would need to be implemented to keep this type of promotional system. As an off-the-cuff idea, blind bids could be submitted from every Eve corp during a period of time before future tournaments for the prizes they would offer as sponsors. Players could vote on the winner or the highest value prizes could win outright… there are many interesting systems that could be set up. I don’t see why this is a bad thing for the Eve Universe overall. The current system definitely needs tweaking, but I think there could be exciting possibilities. Yes, large organizations will be dominant in this system – as they are in almost every aspect of Eve currently. If Red Frog won the bid and each paid system jump got me a ticket to win similar items, I’d probably find excuses to move my stuff around more often. I see many posts requesting that similar sites get similar treatment. CCP has said they hope to expand these types of prize-donations in the future, which makes me think they’re looking into possibilities for accomplishing that. Who would a better trial corporation for this type of promotion have been, and why would (for example) the Red Frog Vegas Tournament with special CCP prizes have been a bad thing as well if they had chosen to sponsor this event?

I guess I'm most confused as to whether people are against CCP providing prizes for organizations who choose to sponsor events (which only players outside of those organizations can win), or if it was the selection process itself that’s getting the backlash. Any player had opportunity to create a product players want to drop ISK on in large amounts, sponsor events, give away ISK, all while generating real money in the form of GTC purchases which lets CCP spend more time on improving the game and less time on marketing. There’s talk about SOMER Blink as if it isn’t Eve content, assuming it’s a scam, implying other in-game profit ventures are somehow superior or more true to Eve and that SOMER Blink does nothing to benefit the community. Every individual and organization in the game had the opportunity to sponsor this tournament to promote their own businesses and offer prizes for participants (without quid-pro-quo expectation). SOMER did this time, and in the future other corps may get the same opportunity. It's either easy to do or there's something special about these guys.